The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: January 9, 2007]

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit corporation founded in October 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement ("free" as in "freedom"), and in particular the GNU project.

The following is a transcript of a lecture given by Richard Stallman in Zagreb on March 9th 2006. The lecture was given in English.

Richard Stallman launched the GNU project in 1983, and with it the Free Software movement. Stallman is the president of FSF - a sister organisation of FSFE.

Transcription of this presentation was undertaken by Ciarán O'Riordan. Topic includes:

* What is Free Software?
* Why are these the essential freedoms?
* Freedom two
* Freedom zero
* Freedom one
* Freedom three
* Directly funding Free Software development
* Comparing free and proprietary software
* The situation in 1983
* Choosing the Unix design
* The name "GNU"
* GNU and Linux
* Software freedom needs to be widely understood
* We urgently need people to work on "stage 2"
* Today, we have enemies
* We need to stop wasting our market power
* Treacherous Computing
* The DMCA and EUCD laws
* Software patents
* More legislative battles to come
* Free Software and schools
* St. IGNUcias and the Church of Emacs
* Question #1: Can you comment on Mono?
* Question #2: What do you think of BSD licences?
* Question #3: What if people violate our licences?
* Question #4: It should be made clearer that publishing modifications is optional
* Question #5: Does your halo contain proprietary software?
* Question #6: Can you comment on the Creative Commons licence(s)?
* Question #7: Do you know any free culture organisation?
* Question #8: Shouldn't Free Software be expensive because it is valuable?